Emagine CEO to city: We're sorry

Appearing before the Birmingham City Commission, the CEO of Emagine Entertainment apologized Monday for changing the site plan, name and concept of a restaurant at the Emagine Palladium movie theater without the city’s approval.

“I want to profusely apologize to this commission … we certainly did not communicate very effectively in terms of what we intended to do,” Paul Glantz said to the commission. “The sad reality is, the restaurant we started with as part of our premises failed. And once it failed, I asked my partner Jon (Goldstein) to give it a shot since my initial process had failed.”

The issue dates back to last November, when Glantz and Goldstein, his business partner, decided to replace the former Ironwood Grill at the Palladium Building at 250 N. Old Woodward with a more casual dining concept called Four Story Burger.

“We were unaware that changing the name of restaurant required approval,” Glantz said at the meeting. “We have paid professionals to advise us on such things and they were simply unaware.”

Birmingham requires any establishment serving alcohol to operate under a Special Land Use Permit that’s reviewed annually by the city commission. The SLUP provides the city with a legal mechanism to quickly shutter a business if there are ongoing problems with the operation.

Under terms of the SLUP, the city commission has the authority to review any significant modification to a business — including changes to the site plan, name and concept. The terms were put into place several years ago after a former establishment, called South Bar & Restaurant, was essentially converted into a nightclub without the city’s approval.

“It’s a contract,” Commissioner Stuart Sherman said about the SLUP. “If an incident occurs at an establishment, we want to be able to go in and deal with it before it affects any other business to the detriment of all.”

The new restaurant, based on a concept called the Burger Joint at Le Parker Meridien Hotel in New York City, has fewer seats and a simpler menu than Ironwood Grill. Goldstein said an interior wall was moved and curtains were added to define the space more clearly between the restaurant and the movie theater.

“It’s hard being a restaurant on the fourth floor of a building – it’s not an easy thing to try and accomplish,” Goldstein said. “But the good news is, more people are eating in the theater than they did before.”

Afterward, the commission voted unanimously to renew the theater's SLUP agreement for the coming year.